Lafayette-Penn: A scouting report

Call me a glutton for punishment. I sat down the other night and slowly went through the entire play-by-play of last year’s Lafayette football game against the University of Pennsylvania – hereafter to be known simply as Penn.

In case you have forgotten, or never knew, the highlights included: a Penn punt blocked by Ben Eaton and recovered in the end zone by Kyni Scott for a Leopard touchdown; a Penn pass tipped by Kyvory Henderson and intercepted by Mike Phillips, who ran it in for a Leopard touchdown. Right, touchdowns from special teams and the defense in the same game – in fact in the same quarter, within 1 minute, 32 seconds of one another. Lafayette 14, Penn 3.

Too bad the offense couldn’t get into the game, too. Only one first down in the entire first half and eight for the game … four pass interceptions – three of them to one Penn DB and one in the end zone … only 19 yards on the ground on 27 plays … only 53 plays for the game.

And then, of course, after racking up 290 yards of offense to Lafayette’s 83 through three quarters, the Quakers went smashmouth at its finest in a 14-play – 13 on the ground, 75-yard drive that consumed 7 minutes, 27 seconds and resulted in the touchdown that gave them a 19-14 victory.

Tailback Brandon Colavita (5-9, 220) gained 40 yards on seven carries and converted a pair of third downs into first downs. He returns this year. Tailback Lyle Marsh (6-0, 220) gained 19 yards on three carries, including a 12-yard run on a delay for the touchdown. He returns this year. Quarterback Billy Ragone (6-1, 225) converted a fourth-and-one sneak at the Lafayette 25 to keep the drive alive and also completed the only pass in the drive. He returns this year.

Penn went on from its Lafayette victory to post a 9-1 record (the only loss was to Villanova) and win a second straight Ivy League title. In 2009, the Quakers were 8-2 en route to the Ivy crown.

Lafayette went on from a 20-17 overtime victory over the Quakers to post an 8-3 record in 2009, but the Leopards had just about anything that CAN go wrong go wrong during a 2-9 2010 season.

Lafayette is off to an 0-2 start in 2011; Penn is opening the season Saturday but is favored to three-peat in the Ivy League.

So, in addition to be a glutton for punishment, I must be somewhat of a kook to think the Leopards might defeat the Quakers for the fourth time in five years. What other explanation could I give for a pick of Lafayette 23, Penn 21 in the gameday capsule of the game that appears in the print edition?

I think I’m out on an island here. I love the banter of the guys who contribute to the Lafayette Sports Forum online. I believe that, deep down, they are true Lafayette fans. I met one of them in Fargo, N.D., and he has no familial ties to this team. You don’t make that trip if you don’t care. They have seen this program at its worst and at its best. They persevere in hopes that things will get better before the annual battle with Lehigh.

Right now, they are beside themselves. Here are just a couple of comments from this week.

“I seriously and honestly believe we are going to get shut out or at least be held to a FG.” – Pard4Life.

“Can you say oh and eleven? Start practicing.” -- Carney2

“Bucknell is our only shot to win a game this year, and we will probably be underdogs.” – Franks Tanks

I was thankful to see a voice of reason in a guy named ”65Pard”. “Wow, a lot of negativity … We will not go winless. Shoop seems to have that fire that others responded to. Gtown is not the doormat they used to be … let’s calm down.”

I’m throwing in with “65.” I still like this team. The hits it has taken already this season have been considerable, not the least of which has been the concussion suffered last week by starting quarterback Ryan O’Neil. But when I talked to Andrew Shoop, who will start in O’Neil’s place, I liked the confidence in his voice when he said without any hesitation that this is now his team.

Shoop has freely admitted to struggling while learning to play the position on a Division I level. I was not convinced he had it down until I saw him throw for two touchdowns during an intrasquad scrimmage in summer camp. He has the arm; he appears to have the determination, and now he has the opportunity. Given Penn’s history at stopping the run, and Lafayette’s inability to get the running game into a higher gear this season, Shoop’s arm may be a huge weapon on Saturday.

Having success early seems to be critical. If the Leopards’ offense comes out in the neutral gear it showed last week at Georgetown, Lafayette’s chances go down like the Dow Jones Averages on a bad day. I expect Penn may try to force the action from the start to take advantage of what will undoubtedly be first-start nervousness. That means the Leopards will have to win the battle of the bulges for Shoop.

Penn, which is just on the outside of the top 25 in the Football Championship Subdivision, doesn’t hide its intention. The Quakers love to run the ball, and they use a bunch of backs to share the load. Colavita is listed as the starter RB, but a year ago he was the third or fourth guy in and once he got there, he was a human wrecking ball.

Penn rushed for 243 yards last year. In addition to that 7:27 possession, the Quakers had other drives that ate up 4:54 and 5:41. Time of possession for the game favored Penn 37:44-22:16. That’s 2 ½ quarters of ball control for Penn as compared to 1 ½ for Lafayette. Lafayette won the TOP in only one quarter – the third, and that by just one second.

The last time Penn won back-to-back games against Lafayette was 2001 and 2002 – by scores of 37-0 and 52-21. Most of the guys on the Lafayette Sports Forum remember those games all too well. I think they fear for that kind of outcome Saturday night.

I don’t think so.

A PLAYER TO WATCH: MATT HAMSCHER

“He’s not coming off the field very often; very rarely do we have an opportunity where we want to take him off the field,” Penn Coach Al Bagnoli said of senior Matt Hamscher, a Whitehall High product who has earned letters in each of his three previous seasons for the Quakers.

“He’s a terrific football player; he’s going to have an impact on the game.”

Pound for pound, Hamscher may be the most athletic player on the team. He has made the most of his 5-10, 190-pound frame.

A year ago, Hamscher had one tackle and one assist against Lafayette. He combined with linebacker Eric Rask for a sack of Leopard QB O’Neil on a first-down play after Lafayette recovered a Penn fumble with just 1:08 left in the game. Two plays later he again tackled O’Neil for a two-yard gain as the Quakers clung to their five-point lead.

Hamscher also returned three kickoffs for 25, 32 and 40 yards; and the 97 yards were the most of any Quaker in the game.

He finished the season as the Quakers’ fourth leading tackler, with 47 total, including 4.5 sacks and seven for losses. He started eight of 10 games and was named to the all-Ivy League second team. He had seven kickoff returns for the season for 196 yards, and he also had two carries on offense.

“He has to be a leader on defense and a playmaker,” Bagnoli said. “He has had a terrific career here.”

Hamscher was recruited as a running back, and in his freshman season, he gained 102 yards in a game against Georgetown. He got four starts at running back as a sophomore, and that season, he threw his first and only touchdown pass as a Quaker.

Two other Lehigh Valley products will be among the 112 Quakers who will be in uniform Saturday – everyone dresses at home. Dan Wilk, a Nazareth grad, is a sophomore defensive back who did not play last year because of an ACL injury; and Eric Fiore, another Whitehall grad, is a freshman running back.

For the record, Lafayette also will dress all of its players Saturday night – but the number is only 78, according to Coach Tavani. The Leopards opened summer camp with the full Patriot League allotment of 98.

2 GAMES BETTER THAN NONE?

Penn’s Bagnoli made sure to play up the fact that Lafayette comes into the game with two games under its belt, even if they wwere losses to North Dakota State and Georgetown.

“You always feel better about your team in Week 3 because you can identify your strengths and weaknesses,” Bagnoli said. Lafayette is built around a very, very good defensive team, schematically sound, they cause a lot of issues with their playmakers. The offense has a lot of issues, too, with big, physical offensive linemen, tight ends and fullbacks. Between us and them, we may see more (physicality)than we’ll see the rest of the year. The only good thing we have is we’re at home.”

Lafayette’s Tavani looked at it from the other perspective.

“We’re basically preparing blind,” he said. “We have no film on Penn. They obviously have two games on us, whether off the Internet or getting their hands on it. Coaches have a way of doing that. That’s the way it is. We have to focus on the things we need to do; obviously that’s not good enough at this point.”

Bagnoli gave a quick overview of his Quakers. “Starting on offense, the majority of our skill kids are back, quarterbacks and running backs. We have a fair amount of receivers back who have played quite a bit. Our concern is the offensive line; we graduated five seniors last year, so we have some young kids there. Our concerns at fullback, we graduated an all-league fullback. We have a junior there who doesn’t have as much game experience as we’d like, but offensively, we like the quarterbacking position and running back, we have three kids who are pretty solid. Defense, we graduated a couple safeties, we have a 3-year starter back. The secondary is a little younger; we have Eric Rask back at linebacker. We have one of beter linemen in the league. Up front, we have a kid (Jared) Sholly, who started two years ago. I think we’ll be solid on defense; the questionmark is our young kids. We graduated more than 30 seniors, but we have been able to play quite a few kids, so hopefully, we’ll be alright.”

ON THE RECORD WITH ANDREW SHOOP

IS IT DIFFERENT FOR YOU TO BE PREPARING AS THE STARTER THIS WEEK? -- “I wouldn’t say it’s a different preparation week, just a more focused one for this team and this offense because we need to come out and establish a tempo. I don’t think we’ve done that yet. We haven’t gone out there and really established ourselves as an offense, let people know what we’re capable of doing. When this offense clicks with all 11 guys, I don’t think there’s anyone who can stop us. I think we’ve been experts at stopping ourselves. We need to focus in.”

WHAT DID YOU SEE ON THE GEORGETOWN FILM? – “The main thing I saw and our coaches and the other guys on the offense saw is that we left a lot of stuff out there. We definitely picked up our tempo in the second half and definitely came out with more fire and with intent to try to set tempo thast was so badly missing. But at the same time, we make some plays, gain some momentum, but we also leave some more stuff there. When it comes to the end of the game and you lose the way we did, you can only say, should we really have gotten to that point? Should we have been put into a situation where we had to run the ball to kick a field goal to win the game? I feel personally I left some throws out there, some plays could have turned into touchdowns to put that game away a lot sooner than under the circumstance that unfolded at the end of the game.”

WILL YOU SPEND MORE TIME WITH COACH FEIN THIS WEEK? – “I don’t know if it will be more time than usual, but I’ll try to get in there. I’ll try not to have t o rely on Coach Fein as much as people think. He’s an outstanding offensive coordinator, the best in the country in my opinion. He’s more knowledgeable than anybody I’ve been around in my life. He rally is instrumental in helping with game plans, but you also have to take personal responsibility when you’re watching film, looking for things he has taught me to look for. I know my preparation will be as hard or harder than it has been since I’ve been a backup.”

HOW HARD WAS IT TO BE DEMOTED BEHID ZACH IN SUMMER CAMP? – “That’s personal accountability. Coach Fein is a very motivational person. He knows how to push the right buttons to get someone to do what what he wants him to do. Granted, I’ve always prided myself in being a hard worker, I just had a very big lack of understanding since I’ve been here at the full complexity of the college game. When it starts to click, it doesn’t seem like work anymore. You’re going and doing something that you enjoy doing. In my freshman year, I was working with the scout team. The next spring, it’s your turn to start learning. I had a decent, sophomore camp. I would have done better had I been more focused , more prepared every day. I can’t tell you when it all clicked. I was a development thing. Over time. I gained a full understanding without it having to be a thought process.”